25/11/08, the mayor of Douai unveiled to the press on a project to sell to the developer half of Dutch Foruminvest Barlet's place to build a shopping mall of 20,000 sqm and 80 shops and a parking fee of 1,000 seats. The other half of the square is transformed into Barlet esplanade closed to cars.
Barlet's Place, the largest in the Douai area, is located across from the park Bertin. Lined with beautiful mansions and is prolonged with Delebecque boulevards and Paul Hayez. It houses the Racecourse and close to Notre Dame.
This place plays a vital role in the daily lives of people residing or working in Douai. It is currently the only free parking is central enough and accessible not only to local residents, but especially to the many people who are stationed morning and leave in the evening, the users of downtown businesses, to those who need the services of various professionals (professionals, associations taking care of people with disabilities, gym, administration ...).
Every Saturday morning there is a market that occupies the entire site, as traders set up their stalls on the paved half of the square, and customers are parking on the other half and boulevards.
Finally, every year the carnival takes place Gayant. The entire site and surrounding streets are filled with rides and fairground stalls. The proposed project
by the mayor of Douai have the following consequences:
1) almost complete disappearance of the place:
Such a space would be very difficult or impossible to recover in coming decades.
The prospect from the Church of Our Lady at the Hippodrome would be masked by the huge mass of the mall. Reduced to a small enclave, which would Barlet's place would be entirely cut off from the park Bertin and boulevards, where a significant disfigurement.
2) Relocation of the funfair Gayant Expo :
This exhibition hall outskirts of Douai is theoretically accessible by a tram whose construction and upgrading encounter such difficulties that one wonders when he will be truly operational. The distance rides
center of Douai and the traditional parade of Giants will deter regular customers of the festival to attend. Showmen know from experience that their relocation to the outskirts of cities leads inevitably by a sharp fall in their turnover.
3) Decline in business activities in general: The disappearance of free parking will discourage non-Douai, used to park up the Barlet, come to shop at Douai, where traffic is already difficult because of the new urban transport plan and the work of the tram, which reduced the number of lanes and parking available. Officially, the mayor of Douai seeks to eliminate the car from downtown. In fact, as it is impossible to do without, it is in practice to charge the motorist the right to use his car, by charging them to his office parking lot. To this end, parking on the medians of boulevards will be condemned and all downtown streets will pay. Teams verbalize the deadbeats will be strengthened. So motorists will be forced to go underground parking area in order to profit on the construction very expensive.
Common sense teaches, however, that when free parking is nonexistent or very limited, customers who want convenience, go elsewhere.
4) Decline in business in particular: The appearance of 80 locations of shops in a town of 43,000 inhabitants as Douai will disrupt the organization's existing business. Fewer because of the suppression of free parking, visitors will fall into the shops local traditional and the gallery, which will result in lower turnover and sudden disappearance of the diversity of shops Douai in favor of international channels that are found everywhere. As for the inhabitants of neighboring towns of Douai, it would be vain to hope to see them make the effort to travel to a city consistently bottled parking fee, while the major roads lead naturally to a few kilometers to competing commercial centers already established, where one has ample free parking and surface water.
traders will not have ruined Douai afford a second rent payment, and royalties in the gallery, and do not succeed in finding a buyer for their old store because of the plethora of commercial space at the same time. The shop owners will lose their jobs and simultaneously invested their wealth in their store. Those who are bankrupt and can not pay their creditors might even suffer a disqualification as a manager for several years. They will compensate and dismiss staff.
These consequences will be disastrous both for the operators of businesses, their employees, subcontractors, suppliers. Do we really need this, at a time so hard for our country, where every day brings more bad news for our economy? Many large companies are experiencing difficulties, such as factories or Renault Arbel, crucial for employment in Douai. Foruminvest account there on our unemployed to come spend their allowances in his gallery?
Economists know that the multiplier of shops is high, because their bosses are Douai eating there, so that shareholders of large international chains live elsewhere. This type of gallery works like a pump drawing the local savings to inject worldwide, especially abroad.
As for the "400 jobs" that dangled Dutch society, they are more random. Wherever Foruminvest promised jobs, she has had to revise downward its estimates.
5) Future of the gallery long term The mayor of Douai who opted for the sale of a half instead of Barlet and not for a long-term lease to lease emphythéotique type (of a period of ninety to nine years), it will no longer be possible to recover the space later. The new owner, Foruminvest, may act as he pleases on his property, rent its cells to which it sees fit and its conditions. If the transaction results in a failure, as has happened elsewhere in our region, we remain with a bulky commercial wasteland that we can not get rid of.
Conclusion:
A project detrimental to any point of view, an unnecessary sacrifice of our urban environment, a disastrous choice to leave immediately. THE OPINION OF FAIRGROUND:
Contrary to what has been written by mistake in some press reports, the traders are absolutely opposed to the project Barlet.
Mayor of Douai has unsuccessfully tried to obtain their agreement promising them a plant of the future sequelae small esplanade of the Place du Barlet the Place Charles de Gaulle, opposite the Post Office.
Well aware that the success of the carnival of Douai is related to their presence on the Place du Barlet, they unanimously rejected this flawed deal and demanded firmly maintaining their permanent right to occupy the place every summer in his entirety, as was the case until today. There is no way for them to go elsewhere, including Gayant at Expo. The fairground
unrestricted support our association and wish with all my heart the withdrawal of the draft Barlet.
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